Benchmark Smarter with AvePoint's Analytics Industry Insights

Poor data quality can make the difference between long-term growth and organizational stagnation. According to Gartner, 94% of data analytics leaders in 2024 anticipated that their function would be vital to organizational success. This underscores the role of benchmarking as a strategic compass for timely decision-making and continuous digital transformation.  

For many organizations, however, benchmarking is still delegated to a generic exercise, isolated from the nuances of their respective industries.  

That’s about to change. In this blog, we’ll talk about AvePoint’s industry-based benchmarking, an innovative capability that enables organizations to evaluate their digital workplace performance against peers in the same sector. Whether they’re tracking Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption or intranet employee engagement, these industry-specific insights are contextualized by standardized industry categories to make data both informative and actionable.

Why Industry Context Matters

Data has to be specific for it to have significant impact. For example, organizations can use benchmarking to specifically monitor high-traffic areas in SharePoint sites, ensuring that only authorized employees have access to sensitive information and enhancing data security as well as compliance. In contrast, traditional benchmarking, which involves gauging your performance against a generic average across all industries, would be both irrelevant and misleading. Industry-specific benchmarking provides better context by anchoring your metrics in the realities of your sector. Whether you're in construction, e-commerce, or healthcare, you can now view performance through a lens that reflects your operational environment, regulatory pressures, and workforce dynamics.

This context is critical to enable: 

• Credible decision-making. Leaders can trust that the data reflects their unique challenges. This helps them evaluate the best course of action without wasting valuable time and resources to make a decision.
• Stakeholder alignment. IDC’s 2025 Worldwide CEO Report found that 66% of CEOs reap measurable business advantages from their data-driven initiatives. By including sector-specific insights, benchmarking data can resonate more deeply with executives and department heads.
• Strategic clarity. Benchmarking becomes a tool for navigating digital transformation, not just reporting on it. In fast-moving industries, the relevance and timeliness of benchmarking data distinguish reactive action from proactive leadership.

Bridging Data-Driven Insights with Innovation

Understanding the importance of industry context is only the first step. The next is execution. This is where the latest benchmarking capabilities from AvePoint offer vital insights. By embedding sector-specific intelligence directly into workforce analytics, AvePoint user analytics innovates benchmarking from a static comparison into a dynamic, intuitive, and industry-aware experience. Here’s a closer look at what’s new and how it empowers sharper and smarter decision-making:

• Industry-based views. Visualize key metrics like Copilot adoption and intranet publishing performance segmented by your selected industry. These views update dynamically, giving you a real-time snapshot of where you stand.
• Industry filter. Available in supported reports such as Copilot Adoption, Intranet Engagement, and Intranet Publishing, this filter lets you select “Your Industry” or any of the 10 ISO categories. For better visibility, your selection is highlighted in yellow, helping you focus on what matters most.

These features are designed to help organizations move beyond surface-level workforce analytics and into strategic benchmarking that drives digital transformation.  

Use Cases Across Industries

Industry benchmarking isn’t just a feature — it’s a framework for insight. Here’s how different sectors can reap benefits.

Healthcare

Who benefits: Clinical operations managers, chief nursing officers, digital health strategists

How they benefit: Benchmarking intranet reach among clinical staff ensures that critical updates – such as policy shifts or emergency protocols – are accessible and disseminated in a timely manner. This supports alignment with data protection frameworks like System and Organizations Control 2 (SOC 2), which emphasize the importance of secure communication and availability of information systems in healthcare environments. Accessible and timely information also improves frontline coordination and supports operational resilience.

Financial Services

Who benefits: Compliance officers, risk managers, IT governance leads

How they benefit: Benchmarking Copilot adoption in compliance workflows helps compliance officers and risk managers ensure that AI tools are used securely and consistently across departments. This supports alignment with global standards like ISO/IEC 27001, which mandate strict controls over data access, integrity, and auditability. By identifying usage patterns and potential gaps, benchmarking reinforces essential governance practices to meet ISO requirements and maintain regulatory confidence.

Retail

Who benefits: Store communications managers, HR business partners, operations directors

How they benefit: Benchmarking publishing activity helps the above roles ensure that frontline staff receive timely and relevant updates across different locations. This supports operational consistency by pinpointing any gaps in content delivery and engagement — areas that are critical for maintaining brand standards, promoting employee alignment, and streamlining communications. By surfacing metrics like publishing volume and employee engagement rates, benchmarking empowers retail leaders to refine messaging strategies and enhance workforce responsiveness.

Whether organizations fall under healthcare, financial services, retail, or other sectors, they can benefit from benchmarking tailored to industry needs. The following key metrics form the backbone of AvePoint’s industry benchmarking:

• Active users to understand who’s engaging and where
• Publishing volume to measure content output across departments
• Employee engagement rates to identify which content resonates and which needs rethinking

These insights help organizations from various sectors tailor their digital workplace strategies to the realities of their industry. This is vital for nuanced benchmarking, improved governance, and enhanced digital transformation

AvePoint Confidence Platform: The Link Between Benchmarking and Governance

Although benchmarking is a powerful part of your data governance strategy, the real value of benchmarking emerges when its insights are paired with governance. This is where control solutions in the AvePoint Confidence Platform come in. Here's how users from different sectors can leverage the AvePoint governance engine, alongside benchmarking, to transform data governance practices:

• Validate governance strategies. Users can harness benchmarking insights to inform policy decisions. For example, if your publishing volume lags behind industry peers, AvePoint's control solutions can help enforce publishing workflows that boost output.
• Close gaps with precision. Users can automate actions by flagging stale content or enforcing retention policies based on benchmarking data. This ensures that governance is no longer just reactive but rather a proactive and precise process.
• Build stronger business bases. Benchmarking provides external validation for governance initiatives. Benchmarking metrics empower users to strengthen their case, whether they’re proposing a new intranet structure or advocating for Copilot training.
• Customize governance by industry. Users can align policy templates with sector-specific needs – like retention schedules for healthcare providers or access controls in financial institutions – ensuring compliance and relevance.
• Enable shared accountability. Apply better control and understand how your users are leveraging their data compared to other industries. This helps users to properly single out use cases for enablement and flag any abnormalities in how data is used. 

Together, the features of user analytics, paired with the control solutions in the AvePoint Confidence Platform, transform benchmarking into a launchpad for precision policy-making, automated remediation, and stronger business cases.

How to Get Started with Smarter Benchmarking

Ready to benchmark smarter? Here’s how to begin: 

1. Enroll in benchmarking. Opt into benchmarking via the tyGraph dashboard. It’s quick, secure, and designed for immediate value.
2. Use the industry filter. Navigate to supported reports and select your industry. Your metrics will update instantly.
3. Apply insights in control. Use benchmarking data to configure governance policies, automate workflows, and validate decisions. 

Industry Benchmarking Insights: Empowering Organizational Growth 

Benchmarking is no longer a one-size-fits-all exercise. With industry-based insights and control solutions in the AvePoint Confidence Platform, organizations can benchmark smarter, govern better, and transform faster.

Whether you're just beginning your workforce analytics journey or planning a mature governance strategy, this new capability empowers you to see how your organization stacks up against your peers, align governance with industry-specific needs, and more importantly, take confident, data-driven action. Start benchmarking with confidence. Learn how your organization stacks up and take action today.